en the rest of the terrific herd came
thundering down upon them, they fled in all haste. To their amazement,
they found that their speed was none too great for their need. The red
monsters, in spite of their bulk, were disconcertingly swift.

As he neared the swift promontory which terminated with the range of
downs, Grom began to fear that he and his followers would have to take
refuge in the water. This water, as it chanced, was the brackish
estuary of a river which, sweeping down from the east, here made its
way to the sea through a long, slanting break in the limestone hills.
It was now near low tide, and there opened before the hard-pressed
fugitives, as they approached the shore, a strip of damp beach running
around the base of the bluff. As they left the grass and ran out upon
the beach they were astonished to find that the thundering pursuit had
stopped short. Just at the turn of the cliff they halted and stared
back wonderingly. Their pursuers, though swinging their great horns
and braying with rage, were evidently unwilling to venture so near the
waterside. They drew back, indeed, as if they feared it, and at last
went crashing away into the canes. The fugitives, glad of an
opportunity to rest their laboring lungs, squatted down with their
backs against the cliff and congratulated themselves on having got rid
of such perilous attentions. But Grom's sagacious eyes searched the
cliff face anxiously, without neglecting to watch the unruffled water.
If that water was so dreaded that even the mighty herd of their
pursuers durst not approach it, surely its smiling surface must hide
some peril of surpassing horror.

For the next few hundred yards, till it vanished around the curve, the
strip of naked beach was not more than twenty or thirty feet in width.
Not without some apprehensions, Grom decided to push forward. There
seemed nothing else to do, indeed, seeing that the cane-beds behind
them were occupied by that irresistible red herd. Somewhere ahead, he
argued, there must be a break in the cliff which would give access to
the rolling downs above, where they might travel in safety.

Disguising his growing uneasiness that he might not discourage his
followers--who were now full of elation at having reached the foot of
the hills--he led on again in haste, though there seemed to be no need
of haste. Both Hobbo and young Mo, indeed, were for staying a while
and sleeping in the shade of an overhanging rock. But A-ya,